Audio 6:53
Opposition rally in Tehran declared illegal

The Government in Iran has declared illegal a planned mass rally in Tehran later today in support of the Opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Mr Moussavi -- whose whereabouts are not clear -- has issued statements saying that the election of President Ahmadinejad was a charade.

He wants the result annulled - but that was ruled out when the Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei heartily endorsed Mr Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: The Government in Iran has declared illegal a planned mass rally in Tehran later today in support of the Opposition Leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Mr Mousavi, whose whereabouts are not clear, has issued statements saying that the election of President Ahmadinejad was a charade.

He wants the result annulled but that was ruled out when the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei heartily endorsed Mr Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Our correspondent in Tehran is Ben Knight. I asked him a short while ago if there was any surprise in the decision to declare today's opposition rally illegal.

BEN KNIGHT: Not at all. Any kind of public gathering is illegal. Unless of course you count the pro-Ahmadinejad rally which was held in central Tehran yesterday where you just saw thousands and thousands of people filling the streets.

The Government put on free public transport. The government television stations were giving directions on how to get there. The only thing illegal about that was the foreign media. We were told that we were not to go or we faced the risk of being arrested.

But certainly this rally today has been declared illegal, it was always going to be but it's the first time I think that we have seen some kind of organisation to these protests. They've been going on now for two days. It's morning in Tehran at the moment of the third day.

But over the past two days it's been sporadic. It's been chaotic and of course it's been brutal as well. So, at four o'clock this afternoon we are going to find out whether this is going to be a turning point in this crisis.

MARK COLVIN: We hear from the BBC, which of course has a Farsi service and a lot of correspondents around Iran, that there are protests going on around the country, also perhaps sporadically. Do we know much more about them?

BEN KNIGHT: Not very much at all though probably the most credible report comes from Shiraz University where we are told that on Sunday morning mobile phone footage showed a large gathering of people. Some unrest there and of course the security forces moved in and dealt with that, as they have been.

But what I think has been remarkable about this, is that I think most people probably expected that the crackdown would be so hard and so swift that things would just peter out and that clearly is not happening and that is very, very unusual for Iran.

I mean people who are getting into these demonstrations know exactly what's going to happen. They know that they will be attacked and they'll be severely beaten if they get caught in the path of the oncoming riot police and of course tear gas.

MARK COLVIN: And that's not speculation is it? I mean there's been a great deal of footage leaking out, some of it on camera phones and so forth, showing real brutality by the authorities.

BEN KNIGHT: Very much so. I mean this is a crisis for the Iranian regime and phrase that's being bandied about, especially since yesterday is - putting the genie back into the bottle. They have not been able to do it and rather the momentum has been building.

We are going to see I think, very many more ugly scenes before this is finished.

MARK COLVIN: In a sense the problem is not that Ahmadinejad lost the election; the problem is that we will never know whether he did because he just didn't want to take the risk of having a proper count. There's very strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that now isn't there.

BEN KNIGHT: What people are saying is that it's the consistency of the two to one margin that has caused; well, scepticism probably seems too weak a word; but people are saying we just saw millions of votes coming in, in a matter of minutes, we saw the information ministry delivering these results before the polls had even officially closed. And if you have...

MARK COLVIN: And they had said beforehand that it would probably be at least 24 hours before the votes really started coming through.

BEN KNIGHT: At least. We were expecting a result on Sunday morning. And there you had one simply just, you know, hours, just a couple of hours after dark.

People have been looking at the results area by area and another aspect that's caused some scepticism is that if you have a look at the home town results of the other three candidates, you still get basically the same margin; two-to-one Ahmadinejad to Mousavi and the other two candidates in single figures.

Now if you look at say Mehdi Karroubi, who was one of the reformist candidates; in his home town, the margin is exactly the same. People are sceptical about that because of the strong family bonds and tribal bonds in that area. It's not consistent.

MARK COLVIN: And what's more he has a party with 400,000 members and they say that his vote was only 320,000.

BEN KNIGHT: But as you say, we'll never know. Iran does not allow election monitors in. One of the complaints that was made by the Mousavi campaign was that there scrutineers were barred from they said at least 250 polling places.

But I think they know and I think everybody else knows that calling for an investigation is useless and this I think, is why you are seeing this direct action on the streets. People here know that it's the only way that they are going to make themselves heard.

MARK COLVIN: The state still has the upper hand. The state still has the power. You would have to assume that eventually it's going to crush this; but to a degree whatever happens the country's not going to be the same afterwards is it?

BEN KNIGHT: It most definitely is not. Yes, you're right eventually, unless there is some remarkable occurrence, eventually the state will regain control of this. The surprise is that it hasn't been done already, which just indicates the depth of feeling, the anger, the despondency and the disappointment of people here who feel that there election was stolen from them and really don't want to contemplate another four years of the same.

The things that concern them are yes, the economy, but also this isolation that Iran has from the world, this belligerence towards the West and the US. There are many people here who don't feel that and they do want Iran to engage with the world.

The do not want to build the country up as being some kind of super power in the region, or even the world, which is of course what Mr Ahmadinejad talks about and repeated in his victory speech yesterday.